


Christmas Rose

by StruggleMuggle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Harmony & Co Advent Collection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:53:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21664003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StruggleMuggle/pseuds/StruggleMuggle
Summary: At the end of her life, Hermione Granger finally admits her greatest wish.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter
Comments: 9
Kudos: 87
Collections: Harmony Advent Collection 2019





	Christmas Rose

Grimmauld Place, December 24th, 2162

She shuffled her slippered feet over the dusty hardwood between the kitchen and the lounge as the teacup rattled against the saucer in her hands. Her fingers were thin and skeletal, the fingerjoints large and gnarly, and they ached in the cold. Even with the magical zone heating active in the house, the old place was so drafty that her joints ached most of the time between September and April. She carefully sat herself on the sofa and smiled at the warm glow from the Christmas tree.

Luna had been by yesterday and conjured the little Christmas tree next to the telly. Luna hadn't been able to stay long of course, but the company had made her smile in any case. Even after all the years they'd known each other it still made her grin to think of Luna surrounded by twenty-seven children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She was so happy for Luna, but also in her heart of hearts so very jealous. The familiar sting echoed in her chest again, the hollow ache she'd been living with for so long now. So long.

She woke up sitting on the sofa some time later. The holoclock said it was eleven pm.

"Better get to bed or I won't get any presents." She chuckled. She left the teacup and saucer on the coffee table, cleaning them would give her something to do tomorrow.

She pulled her wand out and Apparated upstairs. She couldn't really use the stairs anymore, trying made her hips and knees creak. She brushed her teeth and washed her face and changed into her nightgown by rote. Lately her thoughts went backward over her life while her body was occupied with such things, and as always her thoughts stopped on his face. On Christmas Nineteen Ninety-Eight, her last Christmas as a person. She had been a ghost since then, nothing but a slowly mouldering flesh ghost.

She breathed deeply against the ache in her chest and shuffled into bed. She hoped sleep would make her forget, even though it never had before.

As soon as she lay back against her pillow, she knew it was her last night. She could feel her end slowly claim her like a blanket of comfort drawn upward over her. The ache in her chest intensified, and in that moment the entirety of her past came into crystal clear focus. She had given up the one thing in life that might have granted her real happiness. She knew that now - of course she knew it now, there was nothing that could be done about it.

She had thrown him away out of fear and thinking herself unworthy. She had been so steeped in struggle and pain and self-doubt that when the sun finally bloomed from behind the clouds she had shunned it and claimed it was too good for her and it would be better off without her. She had hidden from it and told herself she didn't deserve it while it rose and set for her every day.

Her mother's face coalesced out of a cloud of white mist on her left. Mist on her right became a face she'd only ever seen in pictures, but she would still recognize her anywhere. It was  _his_ mother.

"Oh finally," she wept at the women. "Finally. I've waited so long, mum. So long."

Her mother stroked her hair back from her forehead, and she relished the touch and the love it conveyed. How she'd missed that.

"We're here, Hermione. Are you ready, sweetheart?"

She nodded slowly, but she knew it to be a lie. What she really wanted was beyond her reach now, and had been for most of her life. She turned to her right and looked up into those green eyes, the green she had ached to see for so very long, but she couldn't look for more than a second. They saw through her, and she knew it. Tears escaped as she admitted her guilt.

"I'm so sorry Lily. I'm so very very sorry. I failed him! When he needed me most I let him down. I failed him and I failed myself."

Lily sat on the bed and held her hand, her face filled with tenderness.

"I only wish I could return to him, to when anything mattered." She croaked. Darkness blurred the edges of her vision as her time on earth came to a close. She turned to her own mother, unable to bear Lily's comfort any longer. "I only wish I could tell him. I iwsh I could correct the mistake this life has been. I fucked everything up so badly, mum."

"I'm so glad you finally admitted it, dear." Her mother smiled at her.

"We have had to wait so long while you suffered so terribly, Hermione. We have felt every pain, every day, waiting for you to finally understand." Lily said with a soft, sympathetic smile.

"Now that you understand, you will have a chance to at least tell him, dear. To at least make him know before you come with us."

Her face twisted as she understood the words her mother spoke. Tears made dark spots on her pillow as she sobbed. Her mother kissed her forehead while Lily held her hand.

"I'll take it." She said through the tears. "Anything. I don't care what it costs."

"You made a wish on Christmas Eve, Hermione." Lily kissed her forehead then. "Your heart did not go unheard."

"You must brace yourself, sweetheart. It will be  _that_ night." Her mother said sadly.

"No! No..." Her face twisted again and more tears fell. "Please tell me I will at least be near him. None of us could find him that night, none of us had a clue where to look."

"We will take you to him, dearheart. You will only have until Christmas Eve ends to say what you need to, so listen to your heart and not your head for once, daughter." Lily told her. "This is all we can do."

She nodded. If there was even a chance just to say the words, she could die then. As long as he knew. "I understand. I won't fail him again."

Her mother took her left hand, Lily her right, and they pulled her upright in bed. She stood at the end of her bed, but her room was gone. Below wasn't her walnut floorboards, it was roiling grey clouds. Eleanor and Lily jumped, and as they still held her hands, she had no choice but to follow. They fell through the clouds and emerged into a crisp December night. They were above London. Downtown was off to her left, which would put them falling toward...

Lily and her mum pulled up on her hands and slowed their descent to set her down on her feet on the roof of Grimmauld Place, Number Twelve.

"Midnight..." Her mother whispered as she and Lily faded from view.

Her knees flexed painlessly, and her hands looked young again. They looked like they had in Nineteen Ninety-Eight. She nearly broke down into tears then and there, but she couldn't afford the time.

Harry stood there looking out and down into the street. A thick, blocky bottle of firewhiskey squatted on the roof next to his wand - the wand that had been under her pillow for the last hundred and sixty-three years.

He held a tumbler of whiskey and took a sip as he stared into the distance. She knew what he was up there to do, so she quietly grabbed his jacket and pulled him away from the edge.

"Hermione. What are you doing up here?" He asked, irritated.

"You're here. Where else would I be?" She said softly.

He muttered something she couldn't catch, but it sounded dark and jealous.

"If that was something about Ron and me, you can forget it." She smiled.

"What?" His head snapped back around to face her. "But you and he... He said he fancies you."

"Yes, Harry. Ron said he fancied me. Do you know  _why_ Ron said he fancied me Harry?"

"No... I never asked, really. I just figured he saw you... like I see you."

She smiled at that, at the bittersweet knife slipped between her ribs, and shook her head. "No, Harry. Ron fancied me because I was a girl and because I was already always there with you both. He fancied me because I was convenient and he didn't have to do any work to be near me."

"But that's... I don't understand. He fancied you because he was  _lazy_ ?"

"Yes, Harry. You, being the wonderful, noble, self-sacrificing prat that you are let that fact keep you from telling me what you want to tell me. What I need to hear." She reached out and caressed his cold cheek with her hand. He closed his eyes and nuzzled into her palm, sweet pain etched in his features.

He clutched at his chest, balled his shirt into a fist pressed against it. "I don't... Just tell me what you're trying to say, Hermione. Please."

"I don't love Ron, Harry. I don't, I never did, and I never will. I accept my share of the blame, of course. I thought you were with Ginny and that you couldn't want someone as unattractive and pushy and annoying as me... but then you weren't together, and before I could pull my head out... Losing you broke me, Harry. I didn't care what happened to me after that. You were gone Harry, and you took every scrap of love I had with you."

He frowned. "What do you mean losing me? I'm right here. I've always been here like the spare tyre."

She scoffed at him. "Do you honestly mean to stand there and tell me you thought I stayed with you because of Ron? Because you thought I fancied  _him_ ? I  _knew_ , Harry! I  _knew_ what you went into that forest to do. Did you  _really_ think I offered to go with you because I fancied Ron? I said I'd go with you because  _that was what would have happened anyway_ , Harry. I died that day with you. I came back to life when you did. You are my everything, Harry."

"I can't  _take_ that, Hermione!" He shouted. "Why do you think I'm up here in the  _first place_ ?! I  _can't take_ what everyone else puts on me! I can't  _do_ it anymore! I can't..."

"Fuck Ron. Fuck Ginny. Fuck The Ministry. Fuck Death Eaters. Fuck it all! I don't care what we do or where we go as long as we're together. I love you, Harry. It's always  _been_ you. It will always  _be_ you. Nothing else matters."

Harry looked up at her with shock on his face. His eyes started to water and his lips bent downward as his chin scrunched in an attempt to keep the tears at bay.

"You mean that." He whispered.

"We can go right now. Just you and me.  _I need you_ , Harry. You understand me?  _I need_ ." She jabbed herself in the chest with her index finger. "Fuck what anyone else wants, I'm keeping you. Anyone who wants to dispute me is free to fight me."

He laughed at that. A real, genuine laugh. "I know you too well to ever fight you, Hermione. That's a losing proposition no matter who you are. Especially when you're slinging F-bombs left and right like it's nothing. Frightening... and sexy."

She took a step toward him and he didn't back away. She cupped both his cold-pinked cheeks in her hands and looked him in his bottomless green eyes. "Tell me, Harry. I need to hear it."

He looked back into her eyes for a long moment before his started to water again. "I'm sorry, Hermione. I've been weak, and instead of coming to you like I should have, I compounded it by being stupid too. Yule ball. You coming down the stairs. That's when I lost sight of every other girl. Since then it's only been you and will only be you. I love you, Hermione. I'm so sorry I never told you."

He leaned in close. She could feel his breath on her lips, it smelled of alcohol and toothpaste. He found his courage then, and pressed his lips to hers. He was gentle at first, timid. She pulled him closer and opened her lips. He kissed her lower lip, then her upper. He sucked on each gently, then brushed both at once as he carefully touched her tongue with his.

It was pure, it was loving. It was everything she had always known it would be.

It was not _enough_.

She crushed her lips against his for a second, then backed off and grabbed his hand. She pulled him with her as she turned and headed for the door to the attic.

"What's wrong?" He asked. He sounded afraid that he'd messed up.

"Shush, Harry. There isn't much time. Move faster." She shoved him inside and closed the door behind her. She grabbed his hand again and pulled him to his own bedroom. She locked and sealed the door, then cast a silence shell around the room.

"What's going on?" He asked.

She positioned him beside his bed and unzipped his jacket, pulled it from him and tossed it aside. She didn't bother with the buttons on his shirt, she simply grabbed fistfuls and tore it open.

"I have waited for you longer than you will ever understand, Harry. I'm tired of waiting. Get your clothes off and fill me so full of you that I don't understand what it is to be without you anymore."

She kissed him hard and let her tongue tell him how desirable she thought he was. She tore the shirt from his body, he pulled her jumper off in one smooth motion. She pushed him back onto the bed and pulled his jeans off while she wiggled out of her own.

He stared at her when she pulled her bra off and stood there in her knickers.

"You're so beautiful, Hermione. I can't believe..."

She whipped her knickers down and straddled his tented boxers. "Now you know how I see you." She told him just before she kissed him again and pulled his boxers slowly off.

She straddled him again, the last barrier between them gone. She rested her hot core against his, and smiled as he bit his lip. She kissed him again, the fires inside them both stoked by the action of lips and tongue.

"Don't you want me Harry?" She whispered in his ear as she nibbled his neck. "Do what you want, Harry. Take me the way you've always wanted. Make love to me, Harry. I need you."

A half-groan, half-growl escaped his throat and his mouth found her breasts immediately. His fingers dug into her behind. She held his head in her hands and crushed his mouth to her breasts with a moan.

He turned with her, so she lay on her back with her legs wrapped around him. His hot hardness pressed against her slick entry and caused sparks to shoot up her spine. She let go of his head and reached down to grip his behind. His hands went to her waist as his half-wild eyes caught hers. She looked into his eyes and nodded. His lips found hers again, and he thrust slowly against her. Her membrane parted to admit him and she groaned with the sweet pain as she devoured his mouth.

"Yes," She kissed him. "I waited so long for this, Harry." She kissed him again. She could feel herself gradually adjust to his girth. He kissed her cheek where a tear had emerged as she dealt with the pain, the joy, the satisfaction of finally atoning for her sin. She kissed him again and dragged her fingers up his back to pull him further into her. "More."

He brushed her hair back from her face and gazed in her eyes. "I love you so much, Hermione. I never dreamed you could feel this good." He kissed her again and swivelled his hips. The movement caused jolts of pleasure and pain within her that stoked her desire and made her moan. He kept that up for agonizing moments as he slowly thrust with more and more force. She could feel the hot pressure build into a wave that sent sparks across her skin.

Harry's face twisted into a mask of pleasure as he pushed himself into her. He groaned deep in his chest and bit his lip as his breath hissed through his teeth. Her own breath came fast and frayed with sound she could not remember making.

They built and built and stoked each other's passion until the universe exploded within their minds and their magics. They called each other's names with such helpless passion that neither of them heard the clock chime midnight.

  
  


* * *

Grimmauld Place, December 25th, 1998

Being dead was warm, Hermione decided. Warm and floaty and safe and happy. She could smell pine and the undefineable scent that was pure Harry. For some reason she could also smell her own armpits, and that struck her as somewhat odd.

A hand connected to her left breast squeezed slightly, and she became aware of a body cuddled up to her, and a hot hardness pressed against her behind. She opened her eyes.

She was in a bed.

A wild, impossible hope exploded through her and made her fingers tingle. Her hands were still young. She turned over and caught her lip between her teeth as she saw him lying there next to her. His eyes opened and he smiled a beatific, contented smile.

"G'morning, beautiful. Happy Christmas." He rumbled.

She rolled onto him and kissed him. His stubble scratched at her skin and his breath was deliciously unpleasant. Her nethers ached and stabbed at her in protest as she moved. She grinned at him as tears flowed from her eyes.

"It is the best morning in the history of mornings, my love. Happy Christmas." She kissed him again.

Why? She thought, How?

No, she decided. No. She didn't care how. She didn't care why. She was alive. She was with Harry. Nothing else mattered.

He nuzzled into her neck and wrapped his arms around her and his lips and tongue worked against her skin. Her poor abused sex protested further even as it jolted with pleasure.

"It can't get over how unbelievably happy I am, Hermione. I love you so much."

She lay half on top of him and kissed him until he pushed her off.

"Sorry love, I really have to wee." He apologized sheepishly.

She laughed and let him up and smacked his gorgeous naked arse as he went. She got up out of the wonderfully warm bed and wrapped his housecoat around her and followed him to the bathroom. They showered together and dressed for the day, and neither stopped smiling. Neither moved out of arm's reach of the other, not even as Harry cooked breakfast.

They retired to the lounge and sat next to the Christmas tree, with Harry in the corner of the sofa and Hermione leaned against him.

"Not going to open your presents?" She asked him.

He kissed her. "Maybe later. I'm still recovering from the greatest gift I could ever receive."

She smiled and snuggled deeper into him.

He smiled contentedly and kissed her head. "I'm sorry love, I sent your gifts to your parents' house, so you'll have to wait for it."

"I'm happy with just unwrapping you, but... I'd take a baby too." She smiled as she thought about it and put his hand on her stomach.

He kissed her gently and looked into her eyes. "You would really...?" She bit her lip and looked back at him, eyes filled with love and excitement. "I take it back. That would be the greatest gift I could ever receive."

"I think Christmas Rose Potter has a nice ring to it." She said softly.

He laughed and kissed her again and held her like he was afraid to let go, as though she might disappear if he did. "I want that, Hermione. More than anything." Unshed tears filled his eyes again. "Fuck the public, fuck the Ministry, fuck everything and everyone else. I want you. I need you, Hermione. Nothing else matters."

Above them, on the top of the Christmas tree, neither of them noticed the small brunette and redhead plastic angels wrap an arm around each other and quietly smile as they slowly vanished.


End file.
